Adam Baetu
One of the main goals of effective email marketing is get your message across as quickly and as dynamically as possible. This is why images have so much power in email campaigns. However, many marketers are going one step further and delivering their messages via video content.
Why video works as an email marketing tool
There are quite a few reasons why video content stands out from other email marketing methods – here are just a few key benefits:
It saves everyone’s precious time.
Video has the ability to explain complex subjects easily and provide information on products and services instantly. This saves you as the marketer a whole heap of time, and also enables the recipient to consume the content quickly and easily, without having to wade through pages of text.
It is always engaging.
In an age very much dominated by TV, film and moving images, videos tell stories and engage the imagination and emotions in a way that no other medium can. Most people find they can’t help watching a video once they come across it, and once they’re watching, they’re emotionally invested in what happens within the content.
It’s shareable.
Thanks to the massive popularity of social media, people see images and videos as ‘shareable’, as conversation starters that they can send to their friends and to post on their Facebook pages. This is how your email marketing video can go viral, if you’re able to make them irresistibly shareable.
It gives a voice and a face to your brand.
As much as you can get across the ethos of your brand in a well-chosen image or the tone of your text, video can do so much more to humanise and personalise your brand.
It’s immediate.
In the age of the short attention span, internet users want their information quickly, without having to put time and effort in. Video is the ideal medium to provide this instant gratification, with a marketing message in the guise of entertainment.
To embed or not to embed – that is the question
Email marketers have a choice to make when considering using video in their next email campaigns. Do you include a link to a video in the email, or do you embed the video content in the email itself? The limitations of technology used to make embedding videos in emails incredibly problematic, but that isn’t the case anymore – any email marketer worth his/her salt should now be able to integrate video into email smoothly and seamlessly. But should you?
The main thing to consider is ease of use. If a video autoplays once the email is opened, or requires just one click to play it, this saves your recipient time and makes it more likely that the video will be watched. It takes longer to click through to a website to watch a video, but then the customer is on your website – which is your key goal in sending the email. A good compromise is to embed the video on your site or landing page, and make sure it loads and plays immediately – any delays and your recipient will simply click away.
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